


Starlight Ficlet, Expanded

by FrancesHouseman



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Moonlight, Pre-Series, Pre-Stanford, SO MUCH FLUFF, Star Gazing, Teenchesters, angsty fluff, sam's school day troubles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 06:00:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4655283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrancesHouseman/pseuds/FrancesHouseman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years of training and Sam could have pummelled Shaun Lynch and his three buddies into the dust, and he knows it. He wishes he had.</p><p>It's not that Sam wants to be a sullen brat, just that the tiniest thing could so easily set him off right now, make him wig-out completely and stab something with his fork.</p><p>Sam would be fourteenish but there's no sex here – it's angsty fluff, as advertised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starlight Ficlet, Expanded

 

Five years of training and Sam could have pummelled Shaun Lynch and his three buddies into the dust, and he knows it. He wishes he had. Sam has never smoked a cigarette in his life, he's not stupid. He had just been minding his own business, trying to get home, and Shaun's buddy Joey had decided to use Sam as a sounding board for some of the most brain-dead insults Sam has ever heard, which, after being the new kid at more than twenty schools, is really saying something. Sam had tried to walk on by. He had just wanted to get home. “Where you goin', freak?” Shaun had said, unknowingly scoring a hit, and then he had _put out a cigarette on Sam's forearm_. Sam had yelled. He had kept on yelling, more in rage than in pain, and then the principal had shown up.

Shaun Lynch Senior, it turned out, is a school governor, a school governor who happened to be paying a timely visit to the principal, and so his son and his son's buddies, who were all, incidentally, oh-so-good at football, got off scot-free. Sam Winchester was accused of smoking four cigarettes, quite an achievement in the five minutes since the end of school, and reprimanded in detention. He had hidden his arm.

John Winchester could have killed Shaun Lynch Senior, or the principal, and probably both at once using only four fingers in some kind of Vulcan death grip they teach to Marines. But John can be as full-out ninja as he likes, and Sam can be as much of a budding Einstein as _he_ likes, and it would make no difference at all to these small minded folks of Middle America. The only respect earned in a town like this comes from long-standing community status; an alien concept to Winchesters.

Sam reaches for the front door but it swings inwards before he's ready, before lock can meet key, and Sam sways forwards, surprised by the premature opening and off-balance. “Where the hell have you been?” John demands. He smells only faintly of whisky today but his clothes are heavily worn and his face is heavily lined. He looks like the dangerous man he is, an outcast, here and everywhere else they go. Sam and Dean too, by proxy; perpetual strangers, never around for long enough to belong.

Sam clenches his jaw and pushes past his father's bulk into the tiny damp house. John's body is warm and he smells of comfort. Sam hates that it makes him feel needy like a child, hates that it makes him want to be held. “I had detention,” he says, dumping his bag on a chair and turning to meet John's irritation square-on.

John's eyes dart over Sam, a quick scan for any evidence of fighting but he finds nothing. Sam's forearm still throbs but it's hidden by his shirt. “Something you need help with?” he asks gruffly, and Sam has to grudgingly give his father credit for loyalty. There's no accusation, no question as to whether Sam did something wrong, although that is pretty unlikely given Sam's record, but even when it had been Dean, scrapping, smoking and smooching his way through school, John has always given them the benefit of the doubt. He has signed forms and, on a few memorable occasions with Dean, taken phone calls, but otherwise trusted them to tidy up their own messes. Once they'd had to blow out of town early, and Dean had gotten a serious dressing down for that stunt, but there has never been any doubt that John is firmly on their side; that he has their backs. If and when he happens to be around, that is.

Sam shakes his head. “No,” he says, slumping as the fight goes out of him.

“Okay then.” John goes back to the sofa and his newspaper clippings, subject dismissed. “Dean's been waiting for you,” he says, without looking up. “You both need practice with the knives before we go after the kappa.” He compares a clipping briefly to his notes before discarding it to the growing pile on the threadbare carpet and mutters, “If it is a kappa we're looking for.”

  
  


****

  
  


They throw knives for ages. They throw knives until the wood of the target is turning to sawdust and disappearing from view with the last of the daylight. Sam can't realistically expect to out-throw Dean, and he throws well, better than ever before, but Dean's praise sets him on edge because it feels patronising. Sam wants to be Dean's equal, not his student.

The shower is a luke-warm trickle afterwards and, when Sam gets out, the scent of Dean's chilli con carne hits him, sharp with tomato and spice. Sam's temper flares again and he thumps the damp wall-tile hard enough to hurt the scrunched-up pad of his palm. They had bought all the ingredients for spaghetti and meatballs, and Sam had intended to make it himself this evening because it shouldn't always be Dean's job to cook, goddamnit.

Sam's quiet while they eat. Their father doesn't bother to get up from his research to join them, and Sam replies in grunts to Dean's attempts at conversation until he gets the message and gives up. It's not that Sam wants to be a sullen brat, just that the tiniest thing could so easily set him off right now, make him wig-out completely and stab something with his fork. Given their proximity, that something would likely be Dean, and so Sam stays quiet, plays the role of moody teenager and protects his brother in his own way.

  
  


****

  
  


“Wanna beer Sammy?” Dean asks later, sticking his head around the door. “Old man's out for the count, he'd never have to know.”

“No Dean,” Sam says, steely through his teeth. Dean doesn't deserve the brunt of Sam's temper but Sam can't seem to help himself. “I'm _trying_ to concentrate and beer is _not_ going to help.”

“Or not,” Dean says, smile falling away. He comes into the room proper and tilts his head at Sam, appraising. “What crawled up your ass and died?”

“Just-” Sam presses his wrists to his temples and breathes deeply. “Let me finish this okay?” he says. He tries to make his voice light and forces his face into a tight smile but it probably comes off as what Dean has started to call Sam's bitchface.

Dean holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Fine, whatever. I'll be downstairs, y'know, _keepin' out of your way_.”

Sam makes four stupid mistakes in his essay because he's not concentrating, and after the third he's too pissed to re-write a whole page. He crosses out an entire paragraph in a giant 'X', stuffs it into his school bag and calls it a night. He considers going down to let Dean know that he's going to bed; that it's safe to come into their room without being snapped at, and maybe this time Sam will have the balls to say sorry because no part of today has been Dean's fault. Dean is the best part of his day, of every day; he's the best part of Sam's life. But Dean will be slouched in an armchair, three beers in by now and engrossed in TV anyway, an old action movie by the sound of it. Their father will be snoring and drooling, neck at an awkward angle and ankle-deep in research, having lost the battle to stay awake long ago. Dean will wake him before he goes to bed and Sam doesn't feel like being philanthropic tonight.

  
  


****

  
  


Sam wakes suddenly. In his dream his teeth had been falling one by one, down, down into nothingness. _Like falling stars_ , Sam thinks. He puts his fingertips to his teeth, reassuringly solid and fixed, and then remembers: Mr Walter had said that tonight was the best night to see the Leonids meteor shower, despite the almost-full moon. He rolls, quietly as he can, to check the time but needn't have bothered because the other mattress is empty and still neatly made-up. It's 2.53am. Downstairs the TV is silent.

Sam grabs a hoody and treads softly to the French windows. Sure enough, Dean is already sitting huddled across the salt line on their tiny balcony, back pressed to the glass. Sam taps and Dean is surprised but lets Sam through, always more than happy to share. The balcony is barely big enough for two men and probably not safe to stand on, but it's something of a novelty and the only redeeming feature of their current lodgings. Sam closes the windows gently behind them and breathes in the night air. The slope below runs all the way down to the woods where, at the bottom, the River Caulder winds through the shadows, hidden from their sight-line. The immediacy of the drop sets off another wave of dizziness in Sam. It happens a lot recently, ever since he shot up in height, and it takes him a moment to find his centre of balance.

“Did I wake you up?” Dean asks.

“No,” Sam says, quickly, “I had a dream about... well, never mind.”

Dean tilts his eyebrows in amused question but he isn't really asking, so Sam just shrugs a little and grins at his brother. It's easy to be nice to Dean again, now that they're out here in the desperately small hours of the morning, just the two of them. Dean's answering smile is warm and relieved.

There's a distant car engine and they listen to it fade out of earshot. The River Caulder is too far from the house to hear and the only other noise is the faint rustling of the last dried-up leaves of autumn that are still clinging stubbornly to their trees. Sam shivers.

“Something you want to talk about?” Dean isn't usually so direct. He's always there for Sam, prodding and fussing to check that things are okay in Sam-Land but there's normally a complicated macho dance to step through first. Sam wonders if he's always an open book to Dean, despite his best efforts, but that can't be right. There are depths to Sam's freakishness that even Dean doesn't know about; that Dean can't ever know about.

He considers telling Dean about the petty irritations of his school day, and bemoaning the larger issues of wanting to stay in one place, just for a while so that they can settle in, make real friends and be a normal family for once.

Dean's profile is perfectly proportioned in Sam's peripheral vision, beautiful down to the minutest detail: nose, lips, brow; the freshly shaven skin of his jaw. This is the second school that Sam has attended since Dean dug his heels in, since Dean insisted that he could be more use outside of a stuffy classroom than in. 'Don't worry man, I can read and write, do some sums and everything,' Dean had said to John, flashing his cockiest smile, and Sam had argued of course, making his own opinions known loudly at the time. Dean hadn't technically been old enough to quit school but papers can be forged, IDs too, and age is less of a number and more of an approximation for Winchesters. The one thing that might get Dean back to school is worry for Sam, and if Sam shares the part where Shaun Lynch Junior had called him a freak then he feels sure that Dean will knock all of Shaun's teeth out. It's tempting because the fucker doesn't deserve teeth but Sam wants Dean's happiness more than he wants Shaun's teeth so he says, “Ugh, just school stuff. Too much homework.”

“Geek,” Dean says fondly, scruffing Sam's hair before Sam can duck away scowling.

Sam wonders whether Dean can smell sleep on him, the way he can sometimes smell it on Dean.

There's quiet again, and the sky is still, not a shooting star in sight. Sam thinks he should go back in, leave Dean to his meditation or whatever. Melancholy creeps around the edges of his heart. Nothing is theirs for very long. This balcony, this whole town will be a shrinking reflection in the Impala's rear-view mirror in a matter of weeks. Sam wants more for Dean too. He wants more for all of them.

A small smile plays about Dean's lips. “Look Sam,” he says in a voice forced deep and gruff like their father's, “Everything the moonlight touches is our Kingdom.”

Sam huffs a little snort out of his nose, recognising the bastardized quote from _The Lion King_. “One day it will all be mine?” he asks.

“One day it will all be yours,” Dean confirms solemnly, in the stupid fake voice that's so deep it sends shivers skittering up and down Sam's spine. Dean's eyes aren't joking anymore though, and Sam thinks there's a real message that Dean's trying to get across, in true Dean style, without actually wanting to say anything. He's not really sure what it is but decides to stay on the balcony for a while longer. Maybe Dean will elaborate, stranger things have happened.

“Dude!” Dean exclaims, “Did you-”

“Yeah I saw it,” Sam says smiling at Dean's excitement. “S'why I came out here actually, well, that and to see where you'd got to at three a.m.”

“Make a wish, Sammy,” he says, but Sam shakes his head.

“You called it, your wish. It's the rules.” There are no such rules as far as Sam's aware but he's hoping that his status as resident geek reaches to meteor shower superstition etiquette. It's a bit of a stretch but confidence is everything, Dad's always telling them so.

Dean actually bites his lip, staring out at the real stars while he makes his wish. Sam wants to laugh because Dean looks like a five year old, and then he kind of wants to cry because there must have been so little of this for Dean growing up, no big brother for Dean to turn to, just a snotty little infant to look after and their father lost in grief. Sam ends up making a silent wish too, more of a promise really. He holds up a hand to stop Dean before he can speak. “You can't tell otherwise it won't come true.”

“Okay Sammy,” Dean says, rolling his eyes but Sam's not fooled: the spark that the falling star lit in them hasn't gone out. “Want that beer now?”

Sam notices Dean's stash for the first time and it's his turn to roll his eyes. He almost bitches Dean out for drinking too much but doesn't want to spoil the moment. Sometimes he thinks a person gets a limited about of happiness to be used up each day. And maybe it's the same with bad emotions. If so, Sam must have used up all his sadness and frustration for today and now all that's left is happiness, and he's fiercely glad that he gets to share that with Dean.

They drink and dangle their legs through the railings until it's too cold and they have to huddle inwards, and when Dean takes Sam's hand in his own, Sam tells himself that Dean must be trying to warm him up. Dean just holds on though, biting his lips together and staring stubbornly out into the night, pushing gently at Sam's palm with this thumb.

Sam tries to guess what Dean might have wished for and can't. Maybe one day he'll come clean about the rules and work up the nerve to ask.

He wants to be even closer to Dean, wants to close the last little distance between them. He scoots closer, making sure to shiver in case Dean's feeling jumpy, and tentatively rests his head on Dean's shoulder. He's conscious of his sleep-breath but Dean doesn't complain, doesn't push him away. In fact, Dean turns his head and breathes warm and uneven breaths into Sam's hair.

Sam never wants to move again. He marvels at how far his worries have fallen away, even as his heart drums a war-dance against his ribcage. School troubles and the kappa sliding through the darkness below are so distant that they are merely ideas of ideas, and nothing at all to Sam anymore. Sam is a prince, out here in the night, and the Pleiades are his crown. His blood has turned to molten iron, burning a course through his veins because Dean is holding his hand; Dean is breathing into his hair. Right now the universe revolves around the two of them. The faint moonlight illuminating their little balcony will shine off, away though the light years and onwards forever, and Sam is in love. Dean is everything. He is the secret key imprinted in Sam's DNA and he is the pattern of their destiny, written wide in a billion stars.

 

 


End file.
